Tebow Debuts in the City of Hard Knocks: The Crowd Boos

TeeTee got booed in the Babe’s house? Poor baby. What the hell did you expect? The ancient myth about success in New York has always been, "'till you fought in the Garden you ain’t fought.' But better, if you’re a pretender to a throne, any throne, ‘til you get booed in Yankee Stadium you ain’t been to New York.'" Remember you’re talking about the Bronx, not the crowd waiting to get into Zabars.

But so what does it all mean now, one month into a new gospel? Has the context changed?

Last year–quick review. On defense: Pass, bad; run, good... Offense: Pass, just above the Colts. Run, just below the Colts. “Hard Knocks”, bad. Bad to the left, in general (short, medium, long). Bad deep, to the right. PFF gave him a -27.9 rating overall. Bad.

But then you think, well they’ll save themselves with the draft. Except that the Jets are karmically challenged when it comes to the draft. And what are they looking at now: Courtney Upshaw in the first round, although they’d rather get the pass rusher Melvin Ingram, the seventh overall pick.

If past is prologue, they may get somebody in the sixth round that plays like somebody in the first round. And actually, all things considered, you must concede they have a good roster.

After this year, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. Why? Because the "Sanchise" won’t have another bad year.

Now, back to Tebow. The first thing I thought of when I heard the Evangelion missile was going to the Jets was Joe Namath in his Beautymist pantyhose. Is there any correlation? The next thing I thought was this will never work. It’s not just that TT will only tolerate being “situational” for so long; that this is all just more gimmicks; that no one can withstand The New York Post and The Daily News...

But hope springs eternal, and one of the truths about this guy is that when he’s on the field particularly in the fourth quarter good things happen. He, himself, may not do those good things. In fact, he may do bad things. But other players do good things.

His chemistry makes a difference. His presence makes a difference. That’s my argument. Other have long since reached that conclusion, or that hope.

Of course, now he’ll be half in and half out, somewhere in the Urban Meyer Oscar-Wiener offense. Who knows.

But it’ll be interesting to see how the fans come to see him. It’s doctrinaire to dismiss him, and I’m certainly not with this Good News Gospel; the closest I get is to that is Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, written after he got out of jail.

But I predict TeBow is going to do it. He’s going to make the difference and get the Jets to the playoffs. The trick is to see Tebow as a character, as one those odd people who come to New York and do some great things.